For a fourth consecutive year, CIBC’s chief market technician Sid Mokhtari has outperformed the broader index with his basket of monthly stock selections.
Mr. Mokhtari publishes a monthly report with his top 10 stock ideas and his disciplined process has delivered strong returns. He screens and selects stocks from the largest 100 members by market capitalization within the S&P/TSX Composite Index. His technically driven stock recommendations have consistently outperformed the broader index across a wide range of market conditions.
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In December, his basket of top picks rallied 1.36 per cent, topping the 1.05 per cent return for the index. In 2025, his portfolio of stock selections rallied 51.3 per cent, compared to a 28.3 per cent price return for the broader index (not including dividends). His stock selections also outperformed the S&P/TSX Composite Index in 2024, 2023 and 2022 by 5.8 percentage points, 6.3 percentage points and 2.7 percentage points, respectively.
For January, his diversified basket of stock selections includes 10 new stocks across six sectors. In the materials sector, he added three stocks to his basket of top picks – CCL Industries (CCL-B-T), Ivanhoe Mines (IVN-T) and Nutrien (NTR-T). His consumer discretionary stock selections include Dollarama (DOL-T) and Gildan Activewear (GIL-T). In financials, Fairfax Financial Holdings (FFH-T) and Great-West Lifeco (GWO-T) were selected. In consumer staples, Premium Brands Holdings (PBH-T) was included in his basket of top picks. Telecom provider Quebecor (QBR-B-T) was added along with an industrial stock, TFI International (TFII-T).
Looking ahead, January is historically a positive month for equity markets. Mr. Mokhtari notes that over the past 30 years, the S&P/TSX Composite Index has delivered an average return of 1.2 per cent. Sector performance is mixed ranging from zero per cent to 6.3 per cent. Amongst the leading sectors are health care, technology, communication services and materials, with gains of 6.3 per cent, 5.2 per cent, 1.4 per cent and 1.4 per cent, respectively. The utilities sector is the leading laggard with an average return of zero per cent in January.
In terms of factors that may perform well in the new year, Mr. Mokhtari stated in a Jan. 2 report, “It may be reasonable to suggest that market internals and relative strength rotations have already begun to shift in favour of cyclicals, value and GARP (growth at a reasonable price) with supportive earnings, at the expense of momentum with high beta (growth with rich valuation). Our mean-reversion model also shows a potential positive relative reversal in low volatility and quality factors that have notably lagged.”